This Week in Relevance

By now, nearly everyone in the industry, and many others who aren’t, have blogged, commented, tweeted, liked, and railed on Google’s new Instant Search feature. So what could we, the humble TWIR Staff, possibly add to the conversation at this point? Well, here goes…

So What’s The Big Deal?
We see Instant Search as a big step forward for Google in its core business of search. Many people, ourselves among them, have been wondering when Google was going to start innovating again in core search to match the flurry of changes that Bing has rolled out over the past year or so. It definitely looks as if they have done it, as this represents a pretty significant change from their previous SERP experience.

By significantly lowering time to produce results (who even knew we were wasting precious seconds waiting for search results to load?) Google is enabling users to filter content and get to their destination more quickly (i.e. click on something). In turn, this will likely improve their already high customer satisfaction and revenue generation potential, but will it also enable them to more effectively compete in the market for real-time information distribution? The fact that I get weather results for my location by entering “w” into a search box certainly has us believing that this will be the case.

As of right now, users have to be logged into Google and be searching on Google.com to leverage Instant Search. While there is still a significant portion of the searching population who accesses Google in this way, many of the key influencers and thought leaders in the space access Google through toolbars, direct URL entries into Chrome, and the mobile web. It will be interesting to see how Google addresses this in the coming months in order to make “instant searching” more ubiquitous. However, given the fanatical interest which accompanied the launch of this product (some created by Google, and some organically generated), it looks as if adoption won’t be an issue here.

The End of SEO?
Many have portended the end of SEO with this launch by Google. iCrossing has even compiled a list of brands that are exposed in search results as you type each letter of the alphabet. While there may be an initial boost that comes from being that lucky (or ubiquitous) brand that has its results displayed on that first typed character, we don’t feel that the principles that drive user search behavior or SEO will fundamentally change. Users will not be swayed from their intent to search for “San Diego Hotels” because a “Sears” result is displayed to them while they type. Additionally, those brands that vie for traffic on the term “San Diego Hotels” still need to ensure that they stay relevant for that term via tried and true SEO practices.

However, while the fundamentals themselves won’t change, tools such as Instant Search and Search Suggest do serve to guide the users in certain directions and also enable them to more easily refine their queries. The resulting gradual shift in user behavior and query patterns will not go unnoticed by sites, both big and small, who are strong in the SEO game. They may have to adjust their keyword targets and create new content to meet user demand, but this is nothing new to SEO. Understanding shifts in consumer behavior and adjusting strategies accordingly should be part and parcel to every strong SEO (and SEM!) program and this will continue as long as users are searching for information on Google and other search engines. We think Matt Cutts would definitely concur!

Quality Score
Will more impressions equate to lower quality scores across the board? This is likely a question on many search marketers’ minds with the advent of Instant Search. Google has tried to mitigate the flood of advertiser impressions by necessitating 3 seconds of searcher inactivity before logging an ad impression, but overall ad impressions will still likely climb as a result of these changes, potentially dropping CTRs across the board. Theoretically, ad quality scores should not change as a direct result of Instant Search, since they are a relative and not an absolute measure of relevance, but it will be interesting to see if Google makes everyone pay up initially to account for lower CTRs. Let us know if you learn anything here over the coming weeks and we’ll do the same…

Raising the Bar for Relevance in SEM
One thing we do know about these changes is that they will raise the bar for relevance in search. By allowing users to filter/alter their search results so quickly, organic and paid search listings will have to stand out that much more in order to generate a user response. A search session which in the past generated only 1 or 2 unique SERPs before the traffic left Google, may now generate 5 to 10 or more unique SERPs in the same amount of time. If marketers could not make their unique offers stand out previously (and many could not, delivering static and often irrelevant copy that did not match user intent), then they will really struggle to deliver relevance in this new environment. Additionally, users will more easily be able to refine their queries with additional attributes and qualifiers, taking them deeper into the long tail. Marketers who have rested their laurels on targeting only the highest volume queries in their category might be surprised to see their traffic drop until they adopt more comprehensive long tail strategies. As with the SEO case referenced above, marketers who can quickly adapt to the changing behaviors borne of these changes will most certainly benefit from them.

Design a Cool Heat Map, Win an iPad
A reminder that we accepting entries for TWIR Data Visualization Contest through 9/24. We have seen some great entries thus far and are looking forward to seeing the TWIR community continue to push the envelope. For anyone new to this blog, contest details can be found here and we are available at twir-contest@datapop.com to answer any questions.

Advanced or Needs Sophistication? You make the call.
In Josh Dreller’s recent piece on advanced PPC copywriting techniques, he calls out Dynamic Keyword Insertion (DKI) as a commonly used technique for scaling great copy across a search marketing campaign. In fairness, Josh calls out potential pitfalls of this approach, but we feel that marketers can actually get into quite a bit of trouble when leveraging this approach too broadly as the below example shows – hate to kick a wounded animal when its down, but for the query “oil spill disaster” we see this ad:

Oil Spill Disaster
Stay Updated On BP’s Gulf of Mexico
Response Efforts. Learn More.
www.BP.com/GulfOfMexicoResponse

Clearly BP’s strategy to influence the flow of information surrounding the spill is a sound one, but they’d probably prefer not to echo the public’s sentiment that it truly is a “disaster.” This is just one of many DKI pitfalls – we’ll explore more in later issues.

UPDATE:

BP has now changed their ad on the term “Oil Spill Disaster” to a static Title — great move on their part, starting to understand the potential pitfalls of using DKI.

Location, Location, Location
Wired offered a piece this week on the growing momentum behind Zip+4 targeting online, which would add an incredibly powerful tool into marketers’ arsenals. However, as the amount of data available explodes, the tools and technology required to accurately message to and engage these audiences grows as well. We like the sound of that challenge!

Search Meet Social, Social Meet Search
For years we have heard the somewhat trite but always buzz-worthy phrase, “social drives search.” Finally, with the launch of the “Like” button, Facebook may actually be unlocking the true underpinnings of that phrase. The folks at Business Insider take an in depth look at Facebook’s social search aspirations, and while it is still very early, there are definitely some promising (and relevant) results driven not by crawling algorithms, but social ones.

Relevance Doesn’t Just Matter When You’re Paying
Search Engine Land published some great tips on how to use PPC Copy and relevance scores to drive SEO copy (Page Titles and Meta Descriptions). A simple reminder that relevance should drive every marketing copy decision that we make, not just the ones where there is a monetary penalty for not doing so. We also love the test and learn approach!

Start Thinking About Longer Queries
A new study from ad network Chitika provides some interesting insight into query length and its effect on SEO volume and conversion rate. We all know that query strings are getting longer as users get more sophisticated in their searching, but this study ties actual value towards optimizing meta content towards longer queries. Additionally, in the context of the above story, search engine marketers should be using results like these to help drive their campaign content.